Mechanical equipment refers to a machine or machinery that is formed of a defined arrangement of multiple components. A component means a component, a sub-component, an assembly, a system, or any other part of an item of equipment. A component may include, but need not include, one or more sub-components. An assembly may comprise a group of components that are integrated together. A component is not limited to mechanical elements and is broadly defined to include an electrical assembly, an electrical system, an electronic system, a computer controller, software, or the like. Mechanical equipment includes heavy equipment and capital-intensive equipment that is movable or fixed. Mobile mechanical equipment includes airplanes, busses, locomotives, ships, cranes, heavy trucks, earth-moving equipment, or the like. Fixed mechanical equipment includes electrical power generators, industrial presses, manufacturing equipment, or the like.
A configuration defines the identity of the components (e.g., parts), a specification of the components, and the relationship among the arrangement of components of the mechanical equipment, among other things. Because some components are interchangeable with substitutes, the configuration of mechanical equipment may vary throughout a life span of the mechanical equipment as equipment-related work (e.g., maintenance, repair, or overhaul work) is performed. A maintenance activity or a maintenance task refers to at least one of maintenance, repair and overhaul of an item of equipment or a component of the item. The configuration of mechanical equipment may change because of a revision of product definitions or a review (e.g., a financial and performance review) of the mechanical equipment. Further, even during the manufacturing process, the manufacturer of the mechanical equipment may substitute different components (e.g., parts) from different suppliers to customize the mechanical equipment, to meet a certain technical specifications for the mechanical equipment, or to save manufacturing costs on the mechanical equipment. For example, the manufacturer may change technical specifications of mechanical equipment to rectify manufacturing anomalies or to facilitate more reliable production. Thus, standard as-built documentation on the mechanical equipment may contain erroneous information on the configuration of the equipment.
Maintenance, overhaul and repair personnel may keep few records of the actual configuration of the equipment because of over-reliance on the manufacturer's specifications, manuals, and as-built documentation. Even if configuration records are available, the records may be difficult to use or access. Thus, a need exists for promoting the maintenance of accurate records on equipment-related work with ready access to maintenance, overhaul and repair personnel.
In the context of an airplane as the mechanical equipment, the airplane may be viewed as a member of a fleet subject to the fleet specifications in general manuals, rather than a unique configuration. If generalizations from the fleet specifications are applied to an airplane, the generalization may not apply because of changes in the configuration made during maintenance (e.g., maintenance, repair or overhaul) or earlier manufacturing changes. While the practical experience of the mechanic or technician may overcome the informational gap between the documentation and the actual configuration, such practical experience is often communicated inefficiently by word of mouth and documentation may be unavailable. Moreover, repair and maintenance may become more costly where the mechanic or technician needs to figure out the implications of departures from expected or wrongly documented configurations on an ad-hoc basis.
The operator or owner of the mechanical equipment may operate equipment with a sub-optimal configuration that does not comply with a desired technical specification because of a lack of adequate procedures for identification of the desired technical specification and tracking compliance with the desired technical specification. For example, a typical performance guarantee or warranty for an airplane, as the mechanical equipment, may cover the number of landings/takeoffs, engine hours, and general availability of flight readiness of the aircraft. However, an operator or an owner of an aircraft may fail to enforce the warranty or performance guarantee against the manufacturer because the lack of adequate record-keeping and monitoring of the actual performance of the aircraft that are necessary to demonstrate a performance deficiency. Thus, a need exists for a procedure that facilitates monitoring of compliance with a desired technical performance objective for the mechanical equipment.
In regulated industries, such as the airline industry, the noncompliance with a desired technical specification may represent a violation of a regulatory standard, which can subject the operator or owner of the mechanical equipment to economic penalties. Moreover, noncompliance with a configuration may pose a serious threat to the safety of passengers aboard a noncompliant aircraft. Thus, a need exists for facilitating compliance of a configuration of mechanical equipment with applicable safety requirements on a timely basis.
Some products, especially technologically and physically complex products, are the end result of the development of several dimensions of configuration for that product to perform a task based on a set of product design principles. Each of these configurations has an impact on the ability to properly maintain, repair, or overhaul the end item, or to create a plan or schedule for such efforts. Product design principles, which generate multiple configurations, typically focus on assuring the performance by the product of a task, or set of tasks, within acceptable levels of risk. The satisfaction of all of those performance risks leads to the definition of a functional configuration for the end item that can trace product features back to a functional need expressed for the product.
There are also significant product design risks that must be dealt with and successfully resolved after the functional configuration is known, and which result in the definition of additional types of configurations for the equipment. Risks of this type include levels and duration of product task performance, cost of production of the end item, obsolescence of the end item relative to the task, or risks specific to the industry in which the end item is used. Safety of operation, the chance and cost of catastrophic failure, etc, and each type of risk must be fully reconciled. The reconciliation of these inter-linked risks results in various configuration decisions. Thus, a need exists for facilitating compliance of multiple configurations of mechanical equipment.